Attorney General Sam Olens and Secretary of State Brian Kemp have joined with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and other state law enforcement officials in a complaint charging four sham cancer charities and their operators with bilking more than $187 million from consumers.

The defendants told donors their money would help cancer patients, including children and women suffering from breast cancer, but the overwhelming majority of donations benefitted only the perpetrators, their families, friends, and fundraisers.

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Named in the federal court complaint are Cancer Fund of America, Inc. (CFA), Cancer Support Services Inc. (CSS), their president, James Reynolds, Sr., and their chief financial officer and CSS's former president, Kyle Effler; Children's Cancer Fund of America Inc. (CCFOA) and its president and executive director, Rose Perkins; and The Breast Cancer Society Inc. (BCS) and its executive director and former president, James Reynolds II.

CCFOA and Perkins, BCS, Reynolds II and Effler have agreed to settle the charges against them. Under the proposed settlement orders, Effler, Perkins and Reynolds II will be banned from fundraising, charity management, and oversight of charitable assets, and CCFOA and BCS will be dissolved. Litigation will continue against CFA, CSS and Reynolds.

According to the complaint, the defendants used telemarketing calls, direct mail, websites, and materials distributed by the Combined Federal Campaign, which raises money from federal employees for non-profit organizations. They portrayed themselves as legitimate charities with substantial programs that provided direct support to cancer patients in the United States, such as pain medication, transportation to chemotherapy, and hospice care. In fact, the complaint alleges that these claims were deceptive and that the charities "operated as personal fiefdoms characterized by rampant nepotism, flagrant conflicts of interest, and excessive insider compensation, with none of the financial and governance controls that any bona fide charity would have adopted."

The defendants also used the organizations for lucrative employment for family members and friends, and spent consumer donations on cars, trips, luxury cruises, college tuition, gym memberships, jet-ski outings, sporting events, concert tickets, and dating site memberships. They hired professional fundraisers who often received 85 percent or more of every donation, the complaint alleges.

"Today, I am joining forces with federal and state partners to put an end to an egregious and extensive charity fraud scheme which claimed to assist children with cancer and breast cancer patients," said Attorney General Sam Olens. "These so-called charities took advantage of the generosity of others to fund their lavish lifestyles. It is appalling that only 2.7 percent of the donations collected by these phony charities went to the intended charitable purpose."